


Project P

by Ilerre



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disturbing Themes, Eugenics, Graphic Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22960336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilerre/pseuds/Ilerre
Summary: "You have been selected for Project Pod."
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Kudos: 14





	Project P

**Author's Note:**

> This work in unbetaed. Feel free to notice me with spelling or grammar mistakes.

0

FN-2187 had to stop PO-2187 from biting people most of the time.

He'd gotten used to it by now, but he knew they were never far from a good trashing whenever he jumped on someone and went for their throat.

It was strange.

FN-2187 might have been the one to teach him how to fight (and walk, and read, and literally potty-trained him) but he'd never taught him to bite his enemies. It seemed counterproductive but at the same time, PO—who he'd taken to call _Pojawa_ —had the sharpest pair of canines FN-2187 had ever seen. The Baby might actually use it, he guessed. 

Well, Pojawa wasn't a baby anymore, hadn't been for years, but he was still FN-2187's baby in his mind and heart and soul, and he'd gouged anyone's eyes out and feed them to Poe if anyone dared contradict him.

Partially designed 2187 was seven the day a bunch of higher-ups First Order officers came to his base and called ten of them in a large sleek white room. 2187 knew he was a good Stormtrooper, probably the best of his dormitory, if not the best on this Destroyer base, and waited patiently.

The officers didn't say anything until everyone was at ease and a general walked to them slowly, grey eyes cold and calculating. "Take off your helmets. From now on, I don't want to see you wearing it on base."

2187 took his off hurriedly in total bafflement and placed it at his foot per regulation.

"From now on, you will become the FN unit. FN-2187, FN-8266, FN-1414, FN-9300, FN-2193, FN-6529, FN-7856, FN-8238, FN-5363, FN-4526, you have been chosen for a very special project."

The general stopped and walked back to the other officers, exchanging a brief look with another one who stepped forward and continued. "You have been selected for Project Pod. First for your impeccable results in academics and by carrying out your duties in the best way the First Order taught you. You are the best, and thus have been chosen for the most important mission the Order will ever give you."

He snapped his fingers and a door opened on the back, ten sleek grey medi-droids rolling cart in front of them and each stopping in front of an FN.

FN-2187 didn't show anything on his face—he'd been taught better than that—but he stared hard at the thing inside the cart.

It was a baby.

A really small baby, probably a few seconds old by the pale goo still marring its skin and he straightened up when the general approached.

"Those are your new responsibilities," he explained with a small smirk, as if he released in unsettling them. "You will nurture them, you will feed them, you will teach them everything you know. To follow the rules of the First Order and the importance of order and regulations. You will become a parent, a sister, a brother, a lover for those creatures. You will become their everything and they will follow the Order as you will diligently teach them without fault." He stared at the babies, then at them. "You will not fail. Failing to comply, failing this mission and your creature will take the brunt of your failure, and if needs be, it will be decommissioned and thrown in space to rot."

FN-2187's face minutely twitched at that and pondered on the general's words. He didn't know how that was a problem. He didn't understand how having the creature take all the blame and punishment for his failures would be bad.

FN-2187 had perfect scores, perfect results in everything and had never been in need of discipline by his superiors.

For him, it was a win-win situation.

0

"I didn't teach you that," Finn muttered as he gently stitched the deep gouge on his baby's arm.

Finn and Baby.

The FNs selected for Project P had taken to call their creatures the _babies_ as they weren't able to call them creatures anymore and hadn't been for years now, and Finn had been awarded his name as Poe's first and last word ever. 

Finn smiled slightly at the small pout of the baby's face and snorted when it turned into a full-out pout when he felt he was teased.

"Pojawa," he said quietly, continuing to stich calmly. "You can't solve everything with your teeth, you need to _talk_."

Pojawa narrowed his eyes and hissed, showing his sharp canines as his eyes split angrily.

Finn didn't really know what race he was. Humanoid, but not really. Poe had stopped aging around fifteen, his skin was dark and sometimes glowing, like something was shimmering under his skin making it gleam with goosebumps and sometimes pearly luminous shine, like the inside of a shell.

It was pretty, but abnormal.

No other baby was like his Poe.

Finn didn't know if it was fate, but PO-2187 was the best baby of the Project.

His results went through the roof, even outshining Finn in _everything_.

At four he'd been put into a black X-wing fighter and no one had been able to take him out. His kill count was unspeakable, his skills and maddening intelligence was horrifying.

Finn was proud—oh so proud—of his small Poe, but he started to see the cracks.

He started to feel the baby slip away.

Most days, Poe couldn't sit still for even a second. He was always everywhere, always running around the Destroyer, always pestering the officers, the other Stormtroopers. He'd become quite a mascot, even managing to mellow that asshole redhead Hux who didn't like anyone or anything.

But nowadays, Poe was getting listless. Sometimes, he laid for hours on the bed of their small quarters they called home and just stared at the walls.

Somedays, Finn thought his Poe could feel everything. Could feel every enemy pilot he shot down, could feel every Stormtrooper dying and not coming back or could feel the pain of every reconditioning happening on the Destroyer.

Somedays, Finn thought Poe was dying because he had never felt the sun on his skin, never felt rain touching him, never stepped foot on a planet, seen animals or trees or even felt the wind ghosting its finger down his cheeks.

Poe had been created on a Destroyer, raised and trained on a Destroyer, then put into a X-wing to fight and then returned to the ship every day of his life.

Finn went on land nearly every day to train other recruits as he was a Lieutenant-Instructor but he didn't know what it must feel for Poe.

At night, when they were getting ready for bed, Finn explained what he saw. Explained what things he wanted to teach Poe other than First Order regulations and other than what he was fed day and night by neurotransmitters to teach him everything about piloting, flying maneuvers, aerodynamics, aeronautics and engineering.

His Poe was one smart cookie, with a brain like a computer, but he lacked in everything that made him something other than BB8, his astromech.

Poe using his teeth instead of words, simply because he didn't know (want, bothered…) how to talk wasn't a surprise but it was worrying. Poe's astronomical results was probably what overshadowed Finn's greatest failure and had spared them both reconditioning and rotting in space.

Years ago, Finn asked himself what he was losing by having the _creature_ take the blame for his failure, asked himself how his new orders could be anything else than a win-win situation for him…

He'd never taken into account what the generals had already been scheming years in advance.

The FN taking a liking (loving) to their creatures.

The FN ready to fight to death for the babies.

He knew they were pet-testing, knew Project Pod was supposed to become univerwide and applied to the new Stormtrooper generation. He guessed somewhere, on some hidden ultra-secret base, millions of Pod babies were being created ready to be assigned to a Stormtrooper to nurture and raise, but insidiously to control.

Truthfully, Finn would destroy an entire planet and not care just to save his baby.

He guessed the First Order had really upped their strategies since the Empire days and the number of mindless clone Stormtroopers; today, their ranks would soon be filled with people ordered to comply to save what was their whole soul and heart.

Poe snapped his teeth close to his face and Finn jumped in surprise, snorting at the smug look on the small face, split black eyes dancing amusedly.

Today was a good day, Poe hadn't been sent on a mission and he'd been allowed to eat a piece of berry pie, a rare treat that only ever happened once in the past.

The babies weren't allowed normal food like their FNs. They only had ration sludge and no real food. Poe had never tasted anything other than bland mush until he had been rewarded a piece of berry pie when he was ten.

Today, Poe had been rewarded another piece because three days ago he had singlehandedly destroyed a resistance base and hundreds of their ships.

It was pathetic really, rewarding a soldier for incredible show of talent and skills with pie, but Poe couldn't be happier, Finn knew, and that's why he literally ripped a piece of skin from a trooper's hand when he tried to touch his treat.

The trooper had been yelling in agony and cursing at Poe after stabbing him with a knife through the arm. He'd been dragged to medical, shredded hand held tightly in his good one, gushing blood on the stark white floor and Poe had been watching the scene sitting on top of the cafeteria table, mouth full of blood and pie, munching serenely, staring and staring.

Finn sighed and bandaged the wound, knowing it would scar, yet another one marring Poe's pretty shimmering skin.

"You're a menace, you know that?" he smirked, grinning at Poe sitting crossed legs at Finn's level on top of the desk of their quarters.

BB8 beeped at his feet, as if agreeing and threw Poe a loving exasperated look. Finn didn't know how he could tell the expression, but after years and years of leaving with a half feral moody baby and the droid he'd build at age three, Finn could easily say he was an expert, and really, their quarters was the 'loving Poe place', the only people allowed in there were the people who adored Poe.

The list was extremely short though, as it only constituted of a chirpy droid and an all-suffering Stormtrooper.

He wanted the list to be longer.

He wanted other people to love Poe too, but he knew it would be very hard and very long before it happened.

Poe wasn't scary, well…not really.

When you saw him you wanted to hug him and protect him because he was so small and young looking. Then people started to see under the look and under the pretty shimmering of his skin and started to look into his slanted split eyes, pointy ears and sharp canines and started to wonder what he was, and that's when people started to get scared.

Finn knew other creatures other than humanoids existed everywhere in the universe, he had seen pictures and even seen some of them on some of the planets he'd visited, but there weren't any in the First Order rank. Those racist punks, like Hux, couldn't stand anything that didn't have two eyes and a pair of arms and legs.

Poe came really close to look like a humanoid, probably why Hux had this weird fascination with him, but also because Poe was a mastermind manipulator and probably a Force user.

Somewhere in his crazy mixed created DNA and genome, Poe had some fucked up version of midi-chlorians. He didn't know how those scientists created Poe, but one thing he knew, it wasn't anything like Finn had been created. Finn was human, plain and simple human with a belly button, Poe didn't have one.

He'd probably been marinating in his pod for years before they gave him to Finn when he was nice and ready and full of lots of bits and pieces that didn't really belong in there.

The first few years of his life, Finn had taken Poe to medical every hour of the day to get a multitudes of shots and meds that more than once made him dangerously sick and even once killed him until the medics brought him back to life by shocking him for two hours straight.

Finn guessed Poe had to cost more than an entire fleet of Destroyer if they were ready to spend so much time reanimating him and if they had sent the doctor injecting him with the killing shot to reconditioning to then executed him in front of the entire group of doctor working on Project Pod.

He sighed and grabbed Poe by the waist, hosting him up from the desk and gently putting him on the bed.

Poe giggled slightly and curled up in his too big sweats around the duvet.

The order didn't give him clothes apart from his pilot fatigues.

He wore Finn's otherwise, something about smelling like his FN and reassuring him. Like a wild beast in need of appeasement. Half the time, Finn thought the Project P doctors were full of shit and didn't even know or believe what they were saying.

But Finn and Fonna, another FN chosen for the project had tried, once, to give Poe her clothes and Pia Finn's.

Poe and Pia had become crazy mad and stared at them both in utter betrayal.

They'd never tried again, because as amusing as it had been to see those two small faces scrunched up in disappointment, Finn had seen the latent terror and nearly abandon in Poe's eyes.

Fonna had seen it to, in Pia's, and they silently swore to never do it again. Being amused a second wasn't worth scaring their babies. Nothing in the universe was worth it.

He stretched on the bed, yawning loudly and sprawling like a starfish and grabbed Poe to tuck him against his side, spooning the baby with his back to the door, pressing a hand between the metallic wall and Poe's forehead.

He hated how Poe sometimes occupied himself by banging his head against the wall.

0

"PO-2187," the general smiled, "our greatest success. He's come on top of Project Pod."

The Supreme Leader bent close to Poe, twisted face staring at him intently and Finn had to stop himself from reacting when the Supreme Leader reached a wrinkled gnarly hand toward Poe's face. He traced the smooth surface of his face with yellowed nails and smiled. "This one is strong in the force."

The general nodded curtly. "He's been the most receptive. He's the one who best tolerated the injections." The general canted his head on the side in consideration. "He's also the one who received the more samples from Jedis and Siths. His body genome has seemed to absorb them the best. We're not sure which part of his DNA allowed his body to stand it." He shrugged. "From the other nines who show some slight degeneracies, PO-2187, while his only defect is not speaking, is simply…perfect."

The Supreme Leader cackled breathily and straightened. "Oh, general, he speaks plenty. No need for words when you have such eyes. So much Force," he whispered, his eyes widening in excitement.

Finn felt his gut tighten but remained impassible when the Supreme Leader stood in front of him. "And Lieutenant-Instructor FN-2187, of course," he said in his strange low whistling voice, "you have done a very wonderful job of nurturing PO-2187 to excellence, you shall be rewarded for your work."

He turned to the general. "See that FN-2187 and PO-2187 are compensated accordingly for their exemplary work." He started to walk away and turned suddenly to stare at Poe and Finn lengthily before turning to look at the general with a slight grin. "Perhaps…you should start with some pie, general." He smiled largely and walked away. "Yes. Perhaps some pie."

0

Fonna looked done but happy. She was watching her Pia with such fondness, Finn felt the need to reach for Poe and tuck him protectively against him.

The ten babies were eating pies and Finn half wondered how the caterers had been able to gather such a wild assortment of fruits to make so many pies.

Finn had eaten his fill in pie for what seemed to a lifetime but Poe seemed bottomless and not even ready to stop. In fact, the ten babies were gorging themselves on pies under the amused look of their FNs.

For a second, Finn could feel it.

The sun on his skin, the gentle breeze on his face and the earth under his feet. For a second, he could see Poe running barefoot in the grass, climbing trees and wriggling his toes in rivers.

The need…the sheer absolute need to see this become real was starting to feel like an itch under his skin. Like worms writhing to free themselves from the constraint, the rigidity, the confinement that was their lives in the order. From the stranglehold getting smaller and smaller as the years passed and Poe didn't age, didn't grow taller as the others babies…didn't speak.

The Supreme Leader had said Poe spoke plenty, but not to Finn.

Finn didn't hear him.

Maybe it was mad. Maybe it was delusion at best, but Finn thought they'd be really free the day Poe would speak.

Maybe he set the bar too high; he didn't have any right to ask Poe to speak if he didn't want to.

Poe had so few liberties, so few leeway in his regimented life—even less than Finn—so he couldn't pretend to have any right to ask anything of Poe.

But he needed to be selfish on this.

He needed to apply this selfishness to his plan of taking Poe very very far away from this place, from sleek walls and _space_. He needed to take Poe in some damn solid ground, to teach him something else than fight, kill and follow order.

He needed to teach Poe to swim in a river. He needed to teach Poe to name fruit, name flowers…He needed Poe to be able to name other things than Starfighter parts and flight formations.

He needed Poe out of military life.

Fonna looked at him from the corner of his eyes and Finn turned to fully meet her stare. Defiant, rebellious, daring her to make a move, daring her to stop him from wanting the best for the baby _they_ gave him.

She sighed slightly through her nose and grabbed a piece of pie with a small smile. She took another one and gave it to Finn. "It's a really good pie," she said with her mouth full. "I know Pia'd like other flavors."

Finn munched on the pie and watched Poe engulfed a bite nearly bigger than his head. "I know Poe would too."

The two FNs continued eating pies, plotting.

0

Piadora was pretty.

Nothing like Pojawa really. Finn couldn't imagine a being in this damn universe prettier than his Poe, but Piadora wasn't far behind.

She was a chatterbox though, every bit the contrary of Poe. She loved talking and hearing the sound of her voice, she loved talking to Poe and made it her mission to talk for the both of them. Fonna and Finn always found it cute and loved to watch her cherish and encourage Poe in every way possible.

Pia was also a formidable officer.

Her and Fonna were often on deck of the Destroyer, standing with general Hux and carrying out their duties with ease and precision.

Like with Poe, Hux had a thing for Pia. He actually often asked her to stand next to him and talk. She was an expert talker, and happily filled the role and even _once_ , she said, exchanged a joke with the redhead.

The man was detestable even for the normal troopers and First Order officers, but every baby tolerated him.

Finn asked Poe why, once.

While Poe didn't like anyone in general principle, apart from Finn and the other babies and maybe Fonna— _sometimes_ —he said he found Hux hilarious. Well, he didn't say it with words, but with his hands. Finn didn't really believe Poe knew what ' _[hilarious](https://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/HILARIOUS/6619/1)_ ' meant, but like pies, Poe liked the word when signing it.

0

Finn had bite marks on his armor, a testament of Poe's temper as he raised him. The baby hadn't bitten him in years now, but Finn never changed his armor. He wanted the proof that Poe couldn't stay here. Poe wasn't adjusted, he wasn't behaving normally.

He was too rash, too feral, too asocial and vicious to be considered standard; he wouldn't last a day outside the order.

That's why Finn needed the reminder. Most days he wondered if it was too late. If Poe could unlearn most of the things he had been taught by his instructors (by _Finn_ ), and just have a hope to learn to be a normal human being. He guessed it wasn't realistic. Poe wasn't even human to start with.

How could he even tear Poe away from the only life he had only known?

Even if they managed to escape, where would they go? Finn didn't have money, he didn't have a home.

Poe wasn't even from anywhere out there, he'd been created like a ship _on_ a ship and never stepped foot on a planet. For all he knew, Poe couldn't even live on a planet. Maybe his biology wasn't made for it, but only to sustain ship gravity and recycled air.

Those days, as he watched Poe climb in his black X-wing and just knew he'd see Poe again. Poe couldn't even entertain the idea of running away, even if he had every mean handed out to him to do it. Never without Finn. The codependency they built since Poe had only been _the creature_ , was too ingrained, too set into their soul; Finn even believe they were sharing a soul.

Poe didn't generally get sacred or adventurous. 

His life was too regimented, too predictable, the routine too set for him to really do anything other than follow his orders. 

The only time he was, Finn thought, was when boarding his ship. That last second glance he threw Finn before professionalism and coldness took over and carried him to space aboard his black and red X-wing. 

It was flashy, it was stupid really, the resistance knew to target the black X-wing because it was the only one in the First Order and probably meant something, but Poe was a damn Ortha salamander. He was slimy and slippery and would rather blow himself up rather than be taken by the resistance as a prisoner without Finn. 

Finn knew every times Poe boarded Black-O could be the last time he saw him. He wasn't overly worried. He knew damn well Poe's death meant his too, so he wasn't concerned. As soon as he'd learn of Poe's death anyway, he'd immediately die. 

Their brains were connected in a way. Something the doctors did to Finn the day he touched Poe for the first time. They pressed a hypodermic syringe against his temple and injected a bright blue product. He felt cloudy for a moment as something wrapped around his brain, maybe a worm or a neurotransmitter. But he liked to think it was a small part of Poe's soul gently resting and nuzzling against his.

But those days, as doubt and fear started shadowing reason, Fonna would meet his eyes harshly, would glare and glare for long intense seconds, ordering him to get a grip and carry on as usual, carry on _the plan_.

And Finn would nod and turn to watch Poe stare blankly at walls and feel his resolve come back stronger.

Strengthened.

0

Poe's curls were ridiculous. Again a word Finn didn't know Poe knew but often signed as he struggled to push his hair away from his eyes.

But they were also sacred, at least, in Finn's book.

Poe hated people touching him, but he loathed people touching his head.

Finn wasn't sure where it'd come from. He'd always been careful in his touch with the baby as he grew and then always.

It probably came from the doctors. While they never outright touched him in anger or with the ultimate aim to hurt him, every injection, every medical procedure Poe had ever endured came with pain.

He was warry and skittish, never really at ease anywhere else than the confine of their quarters with Finn wrapped protectively around him.

Maybe it came from the fact Poe was so small and had never grown taller than Finn's mid chest.

Finn wasn't overly tall by nature, but Poe was tiny. And rail-thin. He didn't know why they never gave real food to the babies, why their FNs weren't allowed to feed them with refectory food and only had to make do with the horrible grey liquid mush they had been feeding them for years now.

Every one of them had tasted it; there wasn't a FN who would feed anything to their babies without testing it first, the mush was liquid and bland. Tasteless, insipid and devoid of taste but horribly filling.

It was poor in calories and fat, but two spoonful was nearly enough to make an entire meal.

The babies were only fed on the morning. One bowl of mush and then nothing for the whole day.

Apart from the very rare treat of pie they weren't allowed anything.

Finn first thought it was because the babies' metabolism wouldn't sustain rich, normal food, but if they allowed them pies, then it meant they _could_ eat. Poe had been sick the first day they gave him pie. He'd had cramps and suffered so much Finn was sure the order had been punishing them instead of rewarding them.

He'd taken Poe to medical just for one piece of pie, and Poe had been in such agony, twisting his hands in his concave stomach and throwing up for _hours_ , Finn had promised himself to never feed him anything else than the mush.

But it'd passed, and Poe had been allowed a piece of pie nearly once a year for his perfect record and military exploits. Holding Poe in the fresher, watching him throw up for an hour or two after gorging himself on pie afterwards didn't seem so scary anymore, and dare he say, worth it.

He startled out of his thought as Poe nudged him gently from his thought and smiled gently at him.

Poe was curled up against the bathtub side, a few centimeters of water around him, just enough not to scare him, and golden skin glimmering under the light of the fresher. He was holding a glass bottle of shampoo in both hands, gaze expectant. His eyes seemed to ask him if he was alright and Finn took the bottle.

"It's ridiculous," he said as an answer. "You're ridiculous."

He poured a generous amount of shampoo on top of Poe's head and gently started massaging Poe's scalp, careful not to hurt him as his fingers got caught in tangles. It got messy under his helmet; matted with sweat and sometimes even blood, oil engine and grime. It was hell keeping them clean, but it was one of those stolen moment Finn wouldn't exchange for anything in the universe.

Finn's own hair had always been cropped close to his skull; for practical reason, for hygiene, for a long list of absurd things; mostly laziness, but Poe's hair had always been just this slightly longer than allowed regulation.

Even Pia and Fonna had shorter hair than Poe, but Finn had been jerking on the order's rope for years now. Not really caring about reprimand and knowing they wouldn't punish Poe for his hair.

But.

He'd gotten nearly mad with grief the day he saw Hux reach for Poe and tangle his fingers in his curls. In _that_ way.

Finn had been so disgusted, so horrified that he'd taken the clippers out that night and shaved the whole thing off. His hand had been shaking the whole time, his eyes full of rage but hadn't hesitated a second.

Poe had been passive, catching tuffs of hair falling down his face on his laps and held them tightly in his fists after that. He didn't cry either.

It was just hair. It'd grow back.

But Poe had felt Finn's anger, had felt his unease and started at him dolefully afterwards, tucked in bed in too big sweats, curled against the wall so tiny and vulnerable Finn had felt out of breath.

He'd paced for long minutes, trying to get his breathing under control to finally fall to his knees in front of the bed to stare hard at Poe. "What Hux did? It wasn't okay," he had said harshly. "No one is ever allowed to touch you, Pojawa, you hear me?"

Poe had nodded jerkily, silent and horribly upset as he pointed a finger at Finn.

They had encouraged them to have sex from a very early age. 

They didn't stand by the FNs bed to check what they were doing to the babies, but it was always intrinsic to the orders that sex was a part of it and the final end game. 

They didn't want friends. They didn't want comrades.

They wanted lovers. 

Lovers were passionate. They were ready to fight and kill to save their loved ones.

What better than to make a father/mother/brother/sister fall in love with his/her baby?

Finn and Poe had naturally slide into the lover aspect of their lives when Poe had been fifteen.

His real fifteen years, Finn had been twenty-two at that time. Finn's aging had also started to slow down around the time Poe started to always look the same. The doctor had said Poe's cells aged, but at a much slower pace; like every other babies. It was actually pretty logical, Finn thought, why spent so much time, effort and credit on a project if it was going to die in the same time range as any other common soldier?

Finn gathered the FNs had also started slowing down because they were linked to their babies. The whole scientific explanation didn't even remotely started to interest him, and he sure as hell didn't care of the why's and how's, only the result. 

The babies were more durable. The babies had a longer lifespan than any other humans.

That's all he needed to know.

He'd swallowed harshly and stared at Poe. "Yes. Yes me too. I don't have a right to you, Poe. If you don't want me to touch you, then it's okay. I don't have unlimited access to your body without your consent, even if you're mine."

He needed Poe to know that.

Most times he thought Poe genuinely didn't know he was a sentient being the same as Finn. That he was just that creature given to Finn like a pet. Poe didn't understand the concept of personal space with Finn, and telling him he didn't have limitless access to him was maybe a bit too hard a concept for him to grasp.

Blinking back to the present, he gently massaged Poe's scalp and smiled serenely as Poe tucked his chin on his knees, adoringly looking up at him in contentment. It was their ritual every night. A bath, a shampoo and off to bed snuggled and tangled together with BB8 gently cooing them to sleep in the corner of the room.

It was life as they knew it.

0

The harsh reality of their conditions came the day FN-9300 killed his PO-baby.

After that day, any doubt Finn had about him and Poe being soul-linked had been snuffed out.

They were in the cafeteria, sitting that the FN/PO table when FN-9300 dropped his fork suddenly and made everyone look at him.

He was staring at PO-9300 with so much anguish, so much shame and sorrow, that Finn felt something drop in his stomach and instinctively grabbed Poe by the waist and harshly dragged him on his laps.

Poe squeaked in surprise but went rigid as ice when Fado grabbed a knife and slit Pak's throat effortlessly. Blood gushed everywhere, drenching Poe and Finn who sat just facing them, and Fado laughed and laughed and laughed as he turned to knife to his own throat and cut it with a gurgled apology and a serene smile on his lips.

The whole mess was silent, Stormtroopers standing in shock, FNs and POs frozen in horror. Suddenly, a door opened and a group of guards and doctors came to take Fado and Pak away, dragging their already cooling bodies.

The general watched them placidly, face harsh and somber as he turned to the remaining group. "Emergency meeting level 3, now," he ordered and walked away, shining boots clacking on the floor as his guards followed him.

Finn stood shakily, Poe tucked against his side and clinging at him in desperation. He was staring at the blood on the table, on the walls, on the floor, on his hands. He was being dragged by Finn on unsteady feet, stumbling down the corridors.

The reached level 3 quickly and entered the room, each taking place at their stations but already feeling the huge gap where Fado and Pak should be.

Finn sat on his chair with Poe pressed against his chest, absently rocking him, struggling to calm them both. He felt Poe's trembling hand on his face, trying to rub the blood away in vain and grabbed his hand to stop him, tucking it against this beating heart.

What was happening?

He didn't understand…

Or…

…he could. 

Yes, he could understand and he felt sickly proud of Fado for being the first to free his baby from this life.

Finn watched the doctors and Order officers discuss harshly in a corner of the room and continued rocking Poe and himself as he turned his head to meet Fonna's half-crazy gaze. There was too much white in her eyes, and Pia was crying silently against her neck, inconsolable and heartbroken like his Poe. Like all of them.

They all grew up together, the babies were tethered, the FNs were tangled, Poe had the fucking Force in him, there was no way he hadn't felt those death like his own or Finn's.

The general walked to the front of the room after harshly stabbing his finger in the head doctor's chest and stared at them grimly. "What happened today was a tragedy, but expected," he droned harshly. Not an ounce of feeling in his voice, not an emotion on his face. "FN-9300 had been showing signs of unbalance for a while now, and while he should have been reconditioned in normal circumstances, his link to PO-9300 prevented him from receiving the appropriate care."

The general stared at them all. "This event is not to reflect in anyway on the viability of Project P or on your performances. Bad sheep, they were," he said. "And natural selection took its right and eliminated the weakness. It is a necessary evil. Some have to be sacrificed for the greater good. The First Order will prevail. Project Pod will prevail and grow stronger from those errors." 

His lips thinned. "Thanks to FN-9300, we will be stronger. We will carry on our duties with even more diligence and use what happened to reflect on ways to better ourselves," he said. "Long live the Order!"

They all stood at attention and made the Order sign. "Long live the Order!" they repeated.

The words tasted like ash in Finn's mouth and felt his anger grow and grow and grow.

0

" _Why did he kill him?_ " Poe signed on his skin.

Poe speaking with his hands was a rare thing. Normally he communicated via BB8 by neurotransmitter, that's how he could be a pilot, but signing didn't always interest him. Finn could read anything on Poe's face without needing words or signs anyway, so he barely made the effort.

Finn tightened his arms around Poe and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, breathing in his skin and hair deeply. "Fado didn't see any other way out. He wanted to free Pak."

Poe vibrated deeply, like a purr, a very low rumbled in his chest and Finn spread a hand on his rib cage to feel and absorb it. It was soothing and could put Finn to sleep better than any other sound in the universe.

" _Are you going to free us?_ " Poe asked after a while.

Finn didn't open his eyes and hummed in agreement. "Yes."

Poe was quiet for a moment before Finn felt his whole body sag on itself. Tension evaporating and letting go of its tight hold on his bones and muscles. " _You'll show me the sun._ "

Finn kissed the back of his neck again. "I'll show you the universe," he promised. "I love you."

Poe tucked his head down in the mattress under Finn's arm and the warm ghost whisper of his fingers on Finn's skin was like solace on his soul. " _I love you_."

0

Poe crashed Black-O on the Destroyer deck three weeks after.

His orders were always to come back to the ship and never land on any planet surface.

While the landing would have been easier on land; less painful, less traumatic, less serious; he didn't have a choice and had to land according to his orders.

Finn was standing on the deck at that time, watching the holos show the dogfight the Order and Resistance had engaged. He followed Poe's dot on the screen and nodded sharply when enemies started to retreat.

He heard Poe's voice in BB8's binary inform his left foil was hit and that he risked losing control very soon. He'd lost firepower but was still going too fast and didn't seem able to slow down. Finn bit his lip when he heard Poe notify he needed to land.

"Commander PO-2187, you are ordered to land on deck 4."

Finn threw Hux a shrewd look, his helmet a salvation but didn't say anything.

Fonna exchanged a look with him, and stepped closer to the general. "Sir, we need to evacuate the landing pad. If Black-O's to land, he wouldn't be able to control his ship."

Hux turned his head slowly to pin Fonna with a look of pure disgust and leaned sharply in her space. "I don't need you to tell me what to do, _Lieutenant_ ," he hissed. "I'll order the evacuation if I want to."

Finn felt his guts tighten at his words and knew, just knew, Hux wasn't going to evacuate any Stormtroopers from deck just to make a point. He was going to scarify hundreds of soldier just to show Fonna she'd talked out of turn and let her emotions get the best of her.

The landing was catastrophic, uncontrolled. _Horrendous_.

Black-O ripped half the entrance deck. With its shield still raised, he bounced once on the steel ground, the wings shattered and the body of the Starfighter started stalling as soon as he touched solid, unyielding durasteel walls. He started spinning and spinning and Finn watched in horror as hundreds of stationed Stormtroopers and techs got smashed and crushed in splatter of blood. Several got sprayed with burning fuel, several literally melting with the acid, several caught fire with Black-O's leaking tank.

The panic was total. Droids were running around, people were yelling and screaming, all the while, Hux stood unmoving on top of the deck, watching everything happen under his nose, safely hidden behind the glass durasteel.

Finn watched powerlessly as Black-O rolled and groaned, torn pieces of steel getting crushed like simple paper. He wished for Black-O to just break its mad course. Prayed for the Starfighter to just slow down and _stop_.

He watched a Stormtrooper run toward the door leading to the belly of the ship only for the magnetic door to flash red and trap him on the landing. A basic contingency plan to avoid massive catastrophe on a Destroyer and keep the fire contained. Finn swallowed as the soldier lost all sense of his training and reason and simply started to claw at the door, flame leaking at his boots and back, the fire beast waiting patiently to engulf everything.

Finn wondered, briefly, how Poe was doing.

He knew he was alive, that little ball of love was still carefully cradled against his soul preciously, but he didn't have more information. BB8's com had quickly been cut down and without him, Poe couldn't talk and was too busy holding his controls to spare even a second to type on his keyboard.

Everything happened in minutes who seemed like lightyears to Finn before Black-O came sliding just under the window deck and smashed into the wall. The whole operation room shook violently, tilting slightly on the left and Finn instinctively righted Hux as he stumbled on the side.

The man gave him a quick nod before sighing as emergency firehose started gushing from big metal pipes from all side. Quickly, the whole landing pad was inundated. Some troopers got washed away by the violence of the hoses, some falling through the partially close airlock door before an emergency alarm started again and the emergency second door started to close the landing hermetically.

Finn watched a few last troopers getting sucked out by the vacuum of space before everything started to quite down.

They couldn't see anything. The landing was dark, the black and acrid smoke, the last sparks and small fire obscured their vision and didn't allow them to assess the situation.

Finn heard another round of machinery start and blinked as smokes started to clear as it was sucked to the ground pipes.

He leaned forward, trying to see where Black-O was wrecked and hit his fist against the durasteel. He knew he probably got himself and Poe an official reprimand for that but he didn't care.

Hux hummed under his breath and turned to look at him. "Go to your baby, Lieutenant-Instructor FN-2187," he said quietly, walking to the nose of the deck command to give further instructions.

Finn blinked behind his helmet, wondering at Hux's use of the slang in term of naming the POs but didn't want to lose time trying to understand Hux's complex and contradictory mindset.

When Finn arrived down, he had to use one of his override command to open the door. They hissed open and groaned, and Finn stepped back hurriedly as a piece of Black-O exploded in his direction. The Starfighter had literally crashed and arrested its course against those doors and Finn could already see emergency protocol droids and med droids starting to work on survivors and the destroyed platform.

Doctors were rushing around, and Finn saw the head doctor of Project Pod rush to Black-O, probably in hope his creation wasn't too badly damaged.

Finn didn't rush; he couldn't do anything really, not by himself and med droids and construction droids were going to be more effective and efficient than he would.

He watched BB8 drop from his astromech port at the back of what was used to be Black-O, charred and torn on some part and he spared a second to pat him on the head. "Look at you, Beeps, what's Poe gonna say?" he wondered and winced at the naked circuity he could see through some part of BB8's black and red's casing.

He stood back up and watched one of the doctor in full protective gear open the emergency latch underside the belly of Black-O. One of Poe's engineering achievement was to design Starfighters able to always rollup on itself and righted itself up on the right side, cockpit up not to crush the pilot too long in case of crash.

Finn had seen hundreds of simulation tests and later with pilot droids, but he wasn't prepared to have that technical feat proved right in front of him in such a violent manner. And sure as hell not with Poe inside the cockpit.

The doctors and rescue workers were activating the emergency ladder and rolling footbridges around the ship to stabilize it and have easy access to Poe in order to free him.

One of the doctor gestured at Finn to join them, knowing perfectly well how Poe at bay could be mortally dangerous. Finn threw his helmet away and climbed up one of the ladders and perched himself against the side of Black-O, wincing at the blood splattered on the transparent durasteel of the cockpit.

Being hit at feel speed in space by canon lasers from enemy ships generally bounced on the shield but the recoil was oftentimes vicious. TIEs didn't have protective shield, but X-Wings, and Poe's especially, was equipped with the best he'd ever designed. His ship was so upped and upgraded it barely resembled an X-Wings anymore, but the shock and violence of being hit was something he hadn't yet managed to work around.

The pilots were strapped, but there was always room to maneuver and move around the cockpit, thus sometimes allowed the pilot to smash his face and upper body down the controls, and really, what was a piece of strap supposed to do against hundreds of G of pressure down the shields?

Clearly, Poe got hit several times by the amount of blood.

He heard the hiss of the latch and could finally reach inside the cockpit. It smelled like sweat and blood and brimstone and charred flesh, but Poe briefly blinked at him, hissing in displeasure, hands still tight against his controls. Finn actually watched him pressed several buttons and the deep rumble and vibrations coming from deep inside the Starfighter and under Finn's feet ceased as the engine completely turned off.

The entire left side of his helmet was completely caved in and there was a piece of durasteel stuck into the side of his head, gushing blood sluggishly but at an alarming rate. He nearly threw up at the bloody white bone sticking out of torn skin under Poe's left eye socket. His left shoulder was visibly at a lower angle, clearly out of its socket. In fact, the whole left side of Black-O was caved in and bending toward Poe and completely trapping him.

He was slightly curled on the left, protecting broken ribs or more likely a full flail chest. His breathing was coming ragged and whistling, rattling at irregular interval and Finn heard one of the med droids that scanned him speak of cracked sternum.

"Hey, baby," he said quietly, running a tender finger down the side of Poe's bloody face.

The pilot didn't move but leaned slightly into Finn's finger ghosting his pale cheek. He hissed suddenly as a doctor reached a hand toward him and snapped his teeth on his hand violently.

The doctor made to take his hand away, but Finn stopped him by grabbing his wrist to prevent him from moving and jerking Poe. "Pojawa," he whispered urgently. "I'd like it if you didn't bite anyone right now. Let that guy go and leave them do their jobs. You did yours perfectly well. Your mission is accomplished. You did really good, baby."

Poe tiredly blinked up at him and released the doctor reluctantly, watching him at the corner of his eyes like an angry baby rankor, looking more affronted than he had any right to.

Finn gesture for the medics to get into action and watched them work quickly and efficiently around the baby. Fortunately, Poe being so small made him perfect to fit inside a cockpit and not have his legs trapped completely. Apparently, one of his knees was banged up but no perforation or crushing of his lower limbs was pretty good news in Finn's book.

He threw a glance above his shoulder when he heard Pia call him anxiously and started at her and Fonna quickly before turning back his full attention on Poe. "You even got an audience, you little superstar," he muttered. "Even general Hux is waiting for you," he added, "and you know he doesn't wait for anyone," he added in a conspiratorial whisper.

"He's trapped," the head doctor of Project Pod said. "The whole left side of the ship is crushing him."

Finn nearly wanted to turn to the man in annoyance and push him down the ladder.

This man was one of the First Order's top researchers, created ten whole new beings with bits and pieces of several others in some mad eugenics grand plan and scientific brilliance, but he had the nerves to sound excited at the prospect of studying Poe in such a dire situation? In front of his FN? If Finn didn't know that man literally held Poe's life in his hands, he'd have already killed him.

He remembered the words that doctor told him, years ago, when Finn didn't know how to even change a diaper or prepare a bottle for baby Poe. " _Creates_ ," were his words, " _a monster who thinks it's a man_."

Somedays Finn felt like the only sane individual on this ship. Paranoia and delusions of grandeur, all in one package, plagued the First Order, but Finn wondered oftentimes who were the real monsters? The creatures, or the people who created them?

Two big extrication droids rose to their levels and waited for the doctor's orders. "Commander," one of them said, leaning inside the cockpit with a knife to cut through Poe's harness, ignoring Finn's hand going instinctively to Poe's mouth to stop him from biting. He flashed a small scope device in Poe's eyes and frowned at the readings.

Finn felt the urge to ask what the results were, but decided against it when Poe's eyes turned to him, intent and dark. A small trail of blood had started running down the side of his mouth and Finn absently wiped it off, not wanting to know if it came from internal bleeding, or if it was the blood of the doctor Poe had bitten or if he'd bitten the inside of his mouth or tongue.

At this point, it wasn't important.

Poe's face was getting grey and more shimmering than Finn had ever seen, glowing like a nacre shell and it couldn't mean anything good.

It took an hour and a half to release Poe from the wreckage. He stopped breathing two times, and his heart stopped once and they had to stuck electrodes to his body and shock him as the droids freed him.

Finn was holding his hand tightly as they rolled the gurney to medical, sometimes feeling his arm jerk as he felt the voltage cursing through Poe's body to his. It didn't matter; his heart could take a few jolt of electricity, but not Poe's death.

0

The head doctor was giving calm but firm orders to everyone as Finn was pushed behind a glass wall to watch as they work frantically on Poe.

The head doctor's instruction were scrupulously followed; everyone in the room knowing their roles perfectly well, like a very organized piece of machinery. Every cog in its place, performing its role, as regular and precise as clockwork. It was scarily efficient and Finn knew they were doing everything they could for Poe to survive.

Poe's life wasn't the only one of the line here. Every doctor, Hux…everyone on this ship who contributed to this battle could be executed by the Supreme Leader if the star of his pet project was to die.

The head doctor was moving a scanner above Poe's head, still wearing his helmet and scanned his skull with a dark face. He look at the result grimly and asked a team of neurologist to stand on the side and be ready for when they would take his helmet off; apparently a piece of his skull was cracked and could come off with the depression of his taking off his helmet.

The news nearly sent Finn to his knees, and he had to swallow thickly not to throw up. 

They stripped Poe out of his black pilot uniform overalls and Finn winced at the sight of his body. His face was grey, bloody and translucent, lips slightly blue and set tightly, teeth gritted to contain his agony. He was staring blankly at the white ceiling through glassy eyes, not nearly able to notice all the agitation around him.

Finn started at him, at his bloodshot eyes, at the bloody mess that was his face, his head, his upper body; the bones pocking from his cheek, his sternum looking hollow because his whole ribcage was broken and crushed; he wondered, then, how Poe was even alive.

He knew Poe had some pretty boosted up immune system, like any soldier in the First Order, and also unnatural healing abilities that probably came from the Force, but at this range he'd need a whole new body to heal completely.

"But you're alive," he whispered against the glass separating him from his baby. "You're alive, you impossible thing."

Poe's hands were burnt where the gloves had melted when he hadn't let go of the commands, and Finn wondered at how incredibly tight he must have hold on until the end. The blood was everywhere and Finn wondered how Poe wasn't completely dried now.

His whole body shuddered when the doctor announced it was time to take the helmet off and held his breath, leaning his body against the glass, hands flat on it as if able to go through and reach Poe. He stopped breathing and watched them cut the hard shell of the helmet and prayed half of Poe's skull wouldn't come off with it.

He played a game in his head; if they managed to take it off before he had to breathe again, then Poe would survive.

0

Sometimes—most days if he was honest—being in the Order was like having a giant bloc of ice in front of him, waiting for the slightest opportunity, the slightest gesture on his part to crash on him and submerge him. 

Just a breath, just a hair out of place and this thing was going to fall on him.

Poe had never been out of commission for more than a few days in all his life and Finn couldn't remember a time where he had to sit at his bedside for longer than a few hours, and never with so much anxiety, so much worms prickling under his skin.

He meticulously rubbed burn ointment on Poe's hands and watched the acid cream dissolve the dead skin slowly.

The doctors instructed him to do it three times a day to prevent too much scarring.

Bacta treatment hadn't been an option on any of Poe's injuries as his body completely rejected it, as if he was allergic. It probably meshed with some part of his genome. Finn knew some races across the universe couldn't stand bacta treatment and it was poisonous to their system. He guessed it was alright as Poe had hypertrophied healing abilities and should recover quickly.

Not as quick as if he'd been subjected to a full healing bacta tank, but quick enough he should only be out of commission for a few days. Most days, Finn was blown away by the scientists' brilliance in creating Poe. Any man would be dead and would have never survived such a crash.

The general feeling around the Destroyer and among the troops was that Poe was one hell of a pilot because he managed to actually land on the hardest circumstances, that he managed to complete his mission and led a victorious assault against enemy fleet, but also one hell of an engineer because Black-O had been the most sophisticated Starfighter before it was destroyed.

All that combined had meant Poe's survival and the admiration of his peers and superiors.

"You made colonel," he whispered, massaging ointment on Poe's face. They stapled the gouge under his eye with thick metal staples because the skin was too torn for stitches; it was a gruesome wound and the scar was going to be massive, but at least, he didn't lose his eyes. And anyway, Finn was pretty sure they would have put in a bionic eye if he had lost his, or make him grow a new one by some magic trick.

He wouldn't put it past Project Pod team to be able to grow whole new parts of a body.

He'd been only once to their lab, somewhere in the deepest part of this Destroyer—and he suspected if was only a subsidiary lab, not the main one—and he never wanted to return to this place.

It was maddening; things were floating in tanks, things resembling fetuses, things resembling blobs of flesh, things half-formed, freaking babies with no face, no eyes, no mouth, or no neck…some with their brain outside of their bodies, some without limbs…

He didn't know if it was where Poe had been created or if it had been what Poe had looked like before he was deemed cooked enough to take out of his tank and given to Finn but the feeling of wrongness and stain had stuck to him for days afterward.

As he'd walked behind the doctors and stared at the tanks, the only thing he'd wanted to do was burn the whole place to the ground.

That degree of horror contained between those walls, happening under their feet as they carried out their duties on the Destroyer was horrific. The effect of what he saw couldn't be understood by anyone who didn't visit this place. The ugliness of it couldn't be understood, either, and when he saw all that, when he saw that evil in person, he'd only felt desolation and detachment, as if it'd tried to colonize his body with desensitization to allow his brain to keep his sanity.

And the guilt of it only came wrong. It came not because he felt guilt at being desensitize by what he saw, but guilt because he was glad this place existed and had given him Poe.

That's how the madness of the world colonized the First Order; from the outside in; forcing its member to live in its reality, amplified by Snoke's encompassing presence and dark aura. Finn didn't need to be Force sensitive like Poe to feel the Dark Side around every place the Order had touched.

It made him wonder really.

What was really the Force? 

And he wondered, in the end, if it was possible that everyone was Force sensitive in some ways, because every Order member could feel the unease when the Supreme Leader boarder their Destroyer; even Hux, the most ill-equipped man when it came to feeling.

The silence imposed on every opinion created its own violence, and every soldier on this ship could feel it like a live person standing in the room.

He wished he could escape it all.

He wished someone could answer his questions. Will they be alright? Will Poe survive this life? Would Finn be able to free him? Was Poe ever going to know the sun?

Maddening questions, for maddening times, keeping him alert all day and wondering.

Wondering wildly what he could do, what he _should_ do. One of his senior officer once told him that some questions could ruin a soldier if denied the answer long enough.

But no one could answer Finn's questions.

0

The Supreme Leader came four weeks after the crash.

Poe was standing on his own. He couldn't stay up very long but it didn't show on his blank face. He stood straight under the Supreme Leader's inquiring gaze, unflinching and unyielding. "My dear PO-2187," he greeted. "I heard you had quite an adventure."

He turned to Finn with a smile. "Would you tell me, Lieutenant-Instructor FN-2187?"

Finn answered curtly and aimed for briefly, giving him hard facts and realities. "We lost eighty seven troopers," he concluded.

The Supreme Leader hummed and turned back to stare at Poe, fondly tracing a finger down Poe's cheek and touching his still healing wound. Finn wished he wouldn't, Poe wasn't strong enough yet to fight against an infection and his wounds were still partially opened.

"I heard you did a very good job exterminating the rebel rats before having your regrettable accident. You really did everything in your power with the little you had left between your hands. I personally asked general Hux to promote you as colonel PO-2187."

Poe saluted sharply and gave a curt nod making the Supreme Leader chuckled and turn back to Finn. "I am inordinately chipper today, Lieutenant-Instructor FN-2187." Finn gave his own salute in answer and the Supreme Leader laughed again breathily. "I wish the whole First Order was as diligent as you both, my children," he sighed, " some days I regret the time of the Empire where ever trooper was a clone and so very malleable and mindless. But—" he stopped and clasped his hands behind his back with a grin, "you two are not so malleable, no you are the very proof that every Jedis had always been wrong."

Finn frowned slightly but didn't react more but the Supreme Leader saw and leaned toward him with a smiling face. "Attachment, _major_ FN-2187," he said. "Is the key with which we will put down every single rats of the resistance and the last of the Jedis."

Finn nodded and blinked.

In one sentence he'd been promoted and given the answer to several of his questions.

Jedis were mad.

But Finn and Poe could survive if they escaped.

Because they had each other and it was enough to burn the universe.

0


End file.
